Property-rights proposal threatens farmland, environment

Irresponsible overdevelopment is a major threat to farming in Washington. Sprawling subdivisions are consuming our prime farmland at alarming rates. This overdevelopment threatens more than just farmers and the farm economy. The traffic, pollution and other problems it creates are a serious challenge to our quality of life.

As if farmers don't have enough problems, the Washington Farm Bureau, backed by an assortment of land speculators and property-rights partisans, recently announced its intention to run an initiative in Washington that would create more loopholes for irresponsible developers. The stated intent mirrors Measure 37, a sweeping "takings" initiative approved in Oregon last year but overturned by a judge in October.

Under the Farm Bureau's planned initiative, local governments and taxpayers would have to pay landowners to obey land-use laws or exempt them from the law. The entire idea is fundamentally unfair and irresponsible. The initiative would make it generally impossible and unaffordable for communities to protect themselves from poorly planned overdevelopment.

The initiative's announcement created a wave of concern among farmers across Washington. From apple orchards in Eastern Washington, to organic farms in King County, to wine vineyards along the Columbia, managing growth has protected their ability to farm. And now an initiative threatens that way of life.

In Oregon, 13 county Farm Bureaus opposed the measure because of the threat the measure poses to farmland. DeLoris Grossen, one Oregon farmer, explained her opposition: "You can't farm if your neighbor sells his land to a condominium builder." The same is true in Washington.

The sad truth is that the Washington Farm Bureau is working for irresponsible developers on this one, not for farmers. Its proposal, also known as a "developer's initiative," will help those who want to sell their land to developers who'll create sprawl. But it is a real threat to everyone else. If such an initiative passes, we will lose farmland to poorly planned overdevelopment.

The Growth Management Act requires local governments to protect environmentally sensitive areas, also known as critical areas. The Farm Bureau and others have claimed that these critical-areas protections are bad for farmers. But when you look at the counties around the state that have adopted those protections — King, Whatcom, Pierce — they haven't been opposed by farmers. That's because they were written in collaboration with farmers and designed to accommodate farming.

Washington has a rich agricultural heritage. Every county in the state boasts a significant contribution to the more than $5 billion in agricultural products Washington sells each year. But urban sprawl and poorly planned development consume thousands of acres of Washington's farmland every year, undermining the food system and generating traffic and pollution.

Small farmers are being pushed out of business around all of the state's growing urban areas, denying their families and communities the opportunity to continue the farming tradition and denying consumers the benefits of locally grown food.

When a Marion County circuit judge declared Oregon's Measure 37 unconstitutional in October, the truth behind the initiative became widely known: It is unfair at its core; it reduces protections for public health and safety and the rights of neighbors to protect themselves and their land, while it sets up a system benefiting special interests.

Several rural Oregon landowners and farmers like Tad Vanderzanden, president of the Washington County Farm Bureau, joined the lawsuit to overturn Measure 37 — because of the threat the measure poses to farmland. Washington County has seen almost 400 claims under the measure, more than any other in the state.

Now the Washington Farm Bureau and its developer-supporters want to import a similar idea, carving giant loopholes in laws designed to protect Washington's communities and farms.

Whether you are concerned about farmland, traffic, pollution or disappearing open space, this proposal is a terrible idea. If you are concerned about higher taxes, it's a terrible idea. We cannot afford to pay developers and landowners to obey our land-use laws.

The problem in Washington is not the land protections designed to maintain the state's quality of life. The problem is irresponsible development that overwhelms these protections in far too many communities.